Dave-H

My apologies @RainyShadow, I was so preoccupied at the time with following what @jaclazwas telling me to do, I completely overlooked that the software you were giving me the heads up on was free just for one day! I dug your deleted post out in my e-mail notifications so was able to still use the link, but of course the free offer has now expired. When the driver actually worked without going on to the analysis stage of Jaclaz's instructions, I was so over the moon that I didn't even think that we'd still want to do the analysis! Never mind, I downloaded Soft Organiser anyway, and it's only $20 if I buy it, which I'm quite happy to pay should it become necessary. I'll try and see how it goes with TrackWinInstall first. Thanks, and sorry again. Cheers, Dave.

Of course, understood, it was just a thought! Yes, I agree that although I now have a fully working driver on XP, the method to get to that state is very unsatisfactory for future use. The ideal outcome of all this should be to be able to pack up a driver which just works on XP without any "fiddling" needed. Incidentally, I have now put a copy of ETDSimpleUI.exe into the XP Elantech folder, renamed to Asus_UI.exe, and that now launches when I double click the system tray icon. I worked out which avi video files it needs in this configuration and copied them across too, so it's now fully working. It performs much better than the Asus control panel! So, to copy what you said before, I assume this is the next process, to be undertaken on Windows 8.1 - 1) clean the 8.1 system from traces of previous installations 2) install the Z115203-cab via Device Manager/Have disk .inf 3) verify that the settings changes are "volatile", reboot, etc. 4) start the trackwininstall and have it snapshot the system (in 2 phase mode) 5) make sure (better be safe than sorry) that the %program files%\Elantech\ folder is included in the snapshot and set the tool to not use MD5 for files (in the Options) 6) start the trackwininstall and have it snapshot the system (in 2 phase mode) 7) wait until it asks you to save the snapshot 8) install the Z115203-cab via its Setup.exe 9) re-launch the trackwinistall 10) check the differences (copying and saving them for later review) If the above does not work, repeat, cleaning between the two installs (and thus have two differences files to be compared between them)

Yes, that is interesting, I didn't realise that Windows 10 presumably doesn't allow setup programs to be run to install some devices. Quite how a non-technical user is supposed to know that I have no idea! I guess in future device manufacturers will have to change their installation mechanisms to take this into account. One thing I have already noticed with Windows 10 is that device control panels are moving over to being Windows 10 Apps rather that traditional Windows Control Panel applets. Anyway, slightly loathe though I am to uninstall what I've got now it's working, do you think my previous suggestion is worth a try? If it works that's presumably all we need. I can comment out of the INF all the files that we know now are not actually needed.

Have we tried just installing 11.4.14.1 normally, just substituting the INF from 11.5.20.3 and leaving all the other files as they are? I almost seems as if that's what we've effectively done now by a more roundabout route.

OK, here's the results with the DLLs - ETDApix.dll needed ETDCmds.dll needed ETDFavorite,dll needed ETD_DLL.dll not needed ETDApi.dll not needed ETDMcpl.dll not needed So ignoring the avi files and control panel files, the only files which seem to be needed in the Elantech folder for normal operation of the driver are - ETDApix.dll ETDCmds.dll ETDCtrl.exe ETDFavorite.dll

OK, certainly ETDAniConf.exe ETDCtrlHelper.exe ETDDeviceInformation.exe ETDService.exe ETDUn_inst.exe ETDUninst.dll Don't seem to be necessary for the correct operation of the driver, it's fine without them. There is no "setup.exe" file in the Elantech folder The ETDUn_inst.exe and ETDUninst.dll files may be needed if the driver is ever uninstalled perhaps? I'll try now eliminating the other dll files.

I think the "setip.exe" install actually did whatever was necessary in the registry for the settings to be saved, something that installing via the INF never did. After that it was just a matter of substituting the non-XP compatible files with ones which were. The Asus control panel is very unresponsive, you have to hold the cursor over an option for several seconds before it become "live" and you can change it, and the videos don't work, but as once I've got the settings as I want (basically turning all the gesture and tapping options off!) I will almost certainly never change it again, so that's not an issue! There is actually an "ETDSimpleUI.exe" control panel which was in one of the other drivers which works much better, I may see if I can substitute the Asus UI for that. I will check out which files are redundant.

Update. Without holding out any hope, I changed the settings and rebooted, and the driver settings are being saved properly now on XP! I actually rebooted three times because I couldn't quite believe it! So the driver is in fact now working on XP as well as it will ever need to, and that's without ETDCtrlHelper.exe or ETDService.exe running!

OK, I already tried the setip.exe method before your last post came through. The installation was fine as it was on 8.1, but resulted in a non-working driver. None of the three background programs were running, and there was an error in Device Manager. Substituting the files from 11.4.14.1 produced a better result, but only ETDCtrl.exe is running. The Device Manager error has gone away. The Elan Service has not been installed, which it was on 8.1. Should I roll back and try the earlier tests now?

Oops, OK well at least we know it will work like that in 8.1! I'll try again in XP now and let you know if it's the same.

OK, I've done that, and the driver is still working OK, and the settings are holding across reboots. I'm getting the complaint from the hotkey program ElanTPCfg.exe again as before, but that obviously doesn't matter. I didn't replace the avi files as they have different names. What I have now in the Etantech folder is - ETDAniConf.exe 11.0.0.7 ETDCtrl.exe 11.0.0.13 ETDCtrlHelper.exe 11.0.0.7 ETDDeviceInformation.exe 11.19.0.1 ETDService.exe 11.0.0.4 ETDUn_inst.exe 10.0.0.9 Setup.exe 11.0.0.4 ETD_DLL.dll 11.0.0.4 ETDApi.dll 10.0.0.9 ETDApix.dll 11.0.0.8 ETDCmds.dll 11.0.0.8 ETDFavorite.dll 11.0.0.7 ETDMcpl.dll 11.0.0.10 ETDUninst.dll 10.0.0.1 ETD.sys 11.0.0.31

OK, so I have a complete copy of all the files from 11.5.20.3 in the Frankendriver\x86 folder. I added to it the setup.exe file (11.0.0.4) from the 11.4.14.1 x86 folder, renamed to setip.exe. When I ran setip.exe, the driver install worked. That sounds good!

OK, I've tried all those options, and the setup fails to run in any of the setups I'm afraid. Monitoring the Windows Task Manager, it does look as if the "top level" setup.exe simply runs the one in the x86 folder, presumably after determining that it's a 32 bit system.

I have assumed that it's the setup.exe from 11.4.14.1 (tp118w7.exe) that needs to be copied to the "Frankendriver" folder. I don't think that the spreadsheet says which one to copy. Using that one (11.0.0.4) it appears to do nothing, it runs and then immediately closes. Should it be the one from the top level of the extracted tp118w7.exe?

I suspect we got confused as to what "auto-started" actually meant in this case! Anyway, not worth arguing about (says the guy who started the argument!) I will try out the latest "Frankendriver" and report back, but it won't be for a few hours I'm afraid. Cheers, Dave.

That's what I said wasn't it?

The other way around, ETDCtrlHelper does not auto-run from the driver, but Jaclaz's modified versions will run manually without throwing errors, or of course they can be run at boot from the registry "run" key where ETDCtrl.exe is started from. They don't start with the driver though.

Yes, I was surprised to find no Elantech entry under HKLM\Software on either operating system! I'm sure there was one with some of the other drivers. I think the things it contained (such as the install source path) are now in fact at the top of the HKCU key.

OK, was just going to report that I couldn't immediately see any fundamental difference between the registry entries on 8.1 and XP. They are attached if you want to have a look. Certainly just replacing the XP ones with the 8.1 ones does not make the settings saving issue come good! I will try later on what you now say to do. HKCUElantech81.reg HKCUElantechXP.reg

OK, I tried both modified versions, and they both now run without any error messages. However, they are still not running then the system starts, I have to run them manually. I've tried putting an entry in the registry "run" key to run them at start, and that works, but hasn't made any difference to the saving of the settings. One other thing I've noticed since the service was enabled is that the icon does not now appear in the system tray until I use the touchpad, and which point it immediately appears. I have no idea whether that is significant or not!

I installed the ETD Service by running "ETDService.exe -install" at a command prompt, and the service is now installed and appears to be running fine. Unfortunately the settings are still not being saved over a restart. Maybe both ETDCtrlHelper and ETDService have to be running? I will try those modified versions.

Update. I ran the 11.5.20.3 setup program on 8.1 (I installed via the INF previously). This was without uninstalling first. Now the settings are being saved properly over a reboot. The obvious difference is that the Elan Service is now running, which wasn't before, which may be the key process for the proper saving of the settings, rather than ETDCtrlHelper.exe. At least that explains why I hadn't noticed any problem with the settings being saved before, as up until recently, I had always installed using the setup (which won't run on XP of course!)

So sorry @cc333 and @jaclaz. This is really embarrassing, but I've now realised that all is not well on 8.1 with 11.5.20.3 either! The settings are not actually being saved properly there either, they are reverting to the defaults on a restart exactly the same as they are on XP, even with ETDCtrlHelper.exe running! I really don't know what's happening there, and I can't believe that I haven't noticed it until now. If I change the settings and save them they are fine for the rest of that session, but when I reboot they have all reverted to the defaults, which is basically everything enabled. I don't know if the fact that the behaviour is the same in 8.1 and XP is a help or not, but it certainly doesn't seem to depend on whether ETDCtrlHelper.exe is running or not!

I do hope that's as simple as you make it sound! I suspect that the problem will be finding a version which runs happily on XP, and interacts properly with the other files. Just to update, on 8.1 disabling ETDCtrlHelper.exe and rebooting loses the custom settings, and re-enabling it and running it does not bring them back again, even after a reboot. They have to be set up and saved again using the Asus control panel.

Yes, good call @cc333! I tried using 11.5.20.3 on 8.1, and if ETDCtrlHelper.exe is prevented from running, the settings are indeed lost.